ASPARAGUS. 63 
finer texture, occupy the space as a rule of one red hair. With 
respect to the practice of shaving, Pepys tells suggestively, and 
amusingly in his diary, May 31. 1662, “I did in a sudden fit 
cut off all my beard, which I had been a great while bring- 
ing up: only that I may with my pumice stone do my 
whole face, as I now do my chin, and to save time: which 
I find a very easy way, and gentle.” 
Evelyn has styled the Globe Artichoke “a noble thistle.” 
It contains phosphorus in the form of phosphoric acid, and 
presents as edible parts a middle pulp, together with other soft 
delicate pulp at the base of each floret. “ This middle pulp,” 
writes Gerarde (1636), “ when boiled with the broth of fat flesh, 
and with pepper added, makes a dainty dish, being pleasant to 
the taste, and accounted good to procure bodily desire.” ‘‘ The 
Heads being slit in quarters, first eaten raw with oyl, a little 
vinegar, salt and pepper, do gratefully recommend a glass of wine,”’ 
(as Dr. Musset says,) “‘ at the end of meals.” ‘ The same true 
Artichoke,” told Aristotle, ‘‘ has the power of curdling milk, and 
transforming it into yourt; therefore it should not be eaten 
therewith, but with pepper, which does not generate wind, and 
which clears the liver: and this is the reason why donkeys, who 
eat largely of such thistles, have better stomachs than men.” 
Dr. Metchnikoff now advises a diet of curdled milk for pro- 
longing human life. An ancient stockinger, of Nottingham, in 
the eighteenth century, lived to a great age on this particular 
food. It was his custom to have fourteen bowls of milk stand- 
ing on his window sill, so as to ensure one daily, of the requisite 
age, (fourteen days,) for his consumption. 
ASPARAGUS. 
THE title Asparagus comes from Sparage, of Persian origin. 
and its form Sparagus became corrupted by popular etymology 
into Sparagrass, and Sparrowgrass, sometimes called simply 
“grass”; each of which terms was until recently in good 
literary use. The part of the plant which is supplied for eating 
is the turion, or young shoots, covered with small scales in place 
of leaves. These sprouts contain asparagin, a crystalline sub- 
stance which is an amide of aspartic acid, being sometimes called 
* althein,” and found also in the juice of beets, in the sprouts of 
cereals, and in leguminous seeds during germination. The 
